This is an unofficial blog of news and info from Diamond Mountain University and Retreat Center which was founded by Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of the Dalai Lamas.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Quiet Tomes

Tonight I am writing from my own home in Bowie. A combination of new computer and more mysterious factors has lead to almost regular access to the Internet for the first time in the two years I've been in the house. Today I did some work on Jamyang house. I re-attached a section of the gutter to the adobe wall and connected the gutter to the 2,500 gallon tank that sits in the yard. It has been bone dry for a long time now but during monsoon I am curious how much it will fill. We are very dry out here now. For many days now, if you look toward DMU from interstate 10 you will see a cloud system that seems to lift out of the peaks to the east and behind DMU. I am assuming this is smoke from the fires that burn in the Coronado National Park. The fires are not threatening yet to move toward the retreat valley but it reminds me of how dangerously dry we are out here. The winter froze a lot of the moisture out of the plant life and it is very noticeable.

The ants are back. They are finding their way into homes and trailers out here. After not seeing them all winter I'd forgotten about their tenacity and numbers. A group of us went to Lake Roper last Friday and if we were Jains (ultra non violent sect in India. Walk every where, sweep their path with brooms to move bugs) it would have been a night mare. The ground was a carpet of small ants. The lake was dreamy, however. A dust devil rolled right through our picnic area and wreaked havoc. With the fires, parched earth, legions of ants, and wild weather one might get to feeling apocalyptic. To the contrary, I've been feeling good, balanced. I can't say exactly why but I have some ideas.

I'm starting to really understand what a unique and rich life this is. My opportunities and resources are more clear to me lately. The kind of birth I took, as a human, the time in history, the country, the parents, everything. The free time, oh the free time. I never had so much in my life. There is work but after that it's like a retreat here. No social scene. No dating scene. Barely a sound from the neighborhood. Most of the time these absences have been a suffering. Appreciation is now blooming. We'll see how I utilize them.

Small miracles are occurring. Perhaps that's too strong a word. I'll say instead, I feel I'm being helped by others in a manner that is timely to a suspicious degree. More work is popping up which has eased a lot of stress. I want to stay here and serve. Getting paid work is key to staying here.

When I was a kid I would sometimes see cowboys portrayed as quiet mono syllabic types who spent large amounts of time alone in a land scape that dwarfed them and did it's best to thwart their efforts at comfort. I'm starting to get how that personality could come to be out here. I play the guitar lately and no lyrics come. Months and months of lyric drought. There's so much to be said of the landscape out here but how can I say it? Even more to say about this lineage and the teachings but no words come. But if you asked me a question, then that would be different. I have tomes perched at the tip of my tongue.